The changes in China in the past century can be described as earth-shaking. In such a high-speed social change, some things remain unchanged. For example, the sesame cake in Ye Jia, Gulangyu Island.
The Ye family here refers to the Ye Chengwu family. After decades of wind and rain, three generations kept a stall at the intersection of Longtou Road, selling black and white sesame seeds. Only 1000 yuan was made every day, and when it was sold out, the stall was closed, turning a small sesame stall into a "Chinese time-honored brand" and a "Chinese famous spot" and turning it into a "scenery of Gulangyu". Its insistence on quality for decades is undoubtedly impressive; What's even more amazing is that it is neither extravagant nor arrogant.
Most of the families engaged in snack business on Gulangyu Island started by peddling along the street with small burdens, earning some money to open stores, and some even opened chain stores, making a lot of money. Only Ye Jia, from generation to generation, stood in the same place selling the same linen, facing the oblique wind and drizzle and collecting the sunset glow of the Asahi.
There are three drawers on the stainless steel sesame cake truck, which are filled with black sesame powder, peanuts and sugar respectively, and there is a row of glutinous rice balls above the drawers. The diners counted, and the stall owner began to show his "shadowless hand" kung fu. I saw Master Ye use his The Lancet to pick a glutinous rice ball and spread it into a pocket shape. He quickly scooped up a spoonful of black sesame powder, two spoonfuls of peanuts and a spoonful of sugar with a spoon, wrapped it, and then rolled it up in the black sesame powder to make a cake. The agility of the action is dazzling, no wonder some people say that just watching the production process is worth half the money.
Because of their love, diners inevitably deify the numbness of leaves, and even stall owners hold money (including banknotes and coins) with chopsticks, which is also said to be martial arts. In fact, if we look closely, pockmarked Ye is less than 100 years old, and its founder Ye Chengwu is only 83 years old. In Xiamen, Zhu Chen, a vendor who became famous earlier than Ye Chengwu, once set up a stall at the "Sixteen Battery Feet" beside Zhongshan Road and sold it to overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, it didn't spread and soon disappeared.
The key to delicious snacks is not the seller's "shadowless hand" kung fu, but the pre-production process of snacks that diners have no chance to see. When the cock crows, Ye's whole family will get up.
The process of making glutinous rice balls is as follows: first soak white glutinous rice, then steam it, then pour it into a large stone mortar, pound it into a flexible glutinous rice paste with a big mallet shaped like a horse's head, and then rub it repeatedly on the chopping board. The most troublesome thing about mud stuffing is to make rock sugar, which tastes cool. First, boil sugar into syrup, then stir until it is solidified, and then grind it into powder.